Every Breath You Take

7

"You're positive that was dart?" Lucas questions Dustin as we walk along the path paved by the demagorgans.

"Yes." Dustin sighs, "he had the same yellow pattern on his butt.

"You were looking at his butt?" Steve scoffs, and I give him a nudge, trying to hide my grin.

He can be so immature at times, but that adds to his charm.

I keep my hand in Steve's, sucking in a breath out of pain every time I put too much pressure on my left leg, the pain shooting up to my side that's wounded.

As we trudge deeper into these woods, twigs snapping and all of our shoes getting muddy from the damp forest floor, I fall deeper and deeper into my own head.

What if my wound doesn't heal correctly?

What if it gets infected?

"Hey?" Steve nudges me gently, but I don't register it at first.

What if the demagorgan is rabid?

"Hey!" He repeats, wide-eyed and clearly worried about me. We had fallen behind the group at this point, not by much by enough that we've got privacy.

I snap my head towards him, stopping in my tracks and inhaling a deep breath.

"Y/N?" Steve gently wills me to say something.

I use my right hand to slip a hair-tie off of my left wrist, gathering my hair into a ponytail and tying it off, just to get it out of my face that now has a thin layer of sweat from anxiety.

"Y/N!" He raises his voice, causing me to jump.

"Shit," I breathe, finally looking at him. "sorry... I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He smiles, placing a hand on my shoulder, "just, tell me what's wrong."

I wrack my brain, trying to decide whether or not to tell him the truth. The truth about my crippling anxiety, and all of the awful attacks that come with it. I'm not quite ready to have the whole trauma-dump conversation with him yet, and all the details that come with it... plus, I hate to be seen as weak. I need to be a role model for the kids.

Unfortunately, the whole hunting other-worldy monsters thing is a trigger, but I'm not entirely sure why.

As I stare at him, my heart softening but my guard still up, I start to hear that daunting static noise building in my ears once more.

"No," I sigh, "no, no."

"What?" Steve squints his eyes together, "why can't you-"

"Do you hear that?" I place both my hands on his shoulders, and he flicks his eyes down to connect with mine.

"Hear... what?" He tilts his head at me, "Y/N, you're worrying me."

"No, it's okay." I squeeze his shoulders affectionately, "I guess this is all just getting into my head."

The static threatens to take over, and I desperately try to talk myself through it as I stay put in front of my boyfriend.

"I'm sorry," I frown, tears forming in my eyes from the fear of what might happen, "this is all just so-"

I'm cut off by the movement of Steve wrapping his muscular arms around me, and pulling me up against his chest.

"I'm here." He whispers, running a hand through my hair as I lay my head against his chest, slowly wrapping my arms around his torso and relaxing into the hug as I hear the sound of static fade away as he holds me, "I'm going to protect you, Y/N."